It is known that computers may control machine processes in manufacturing of components or discrete items, and typical examples in the prior art include things like numeric-controlled milling machines which are used for operations such as milling custom-designed automotive wheels from block or bar stock metal materials. These techniques essentially are subtractive manufacturing, as material is removed from a starting material to achieve a desired form. Typical restrictions have to do with the limitations on access by computer controlled machining acting surfaces (bits, grinders, burners, lasers, etc) to the working surfaces of the desired part, as well as some restrictions on the types of materials which can be machined, and thus the types of substances from which parts can be manufactured by substractive working.
More recently, computer control systems have been adopted to perform additive manufacturing, most commonly thought of as “3D Printing” processes, but which can also include printing with fine extrusions of thermoplastics or deposition of metals for manufacturing of processes like jewelry, turbine blades, sculpture and toys, and rougher (broader gauge) extrusions or depositions of materials such as concrete/cement or similar materials for gross manufacturing of things like buildings. Other techniques include things like photo-hardening plastics built in accretive layers by exposure of a photo-sensitive liquid to effective light frequencies and successive submersions with further exposures, to form ‘stacked layers’ of two-dimensional shapes to form three-dimensional objects. These additive manufacturing systems are somewhat limited, again by things like the ability to build a part or component from layers of accreted printed material, the ability to control movement of print-heads or light exposure sources and the substrates already laid down, the types of materials suitable for use in fine-detail printing or lithography settings, and the like. Additional constraints have to do with ensuring location of print-head or lithography activity in space, typically by tightly constraining the base and initial (and as-building) part or component from any movement.
Computer assisted design systems are maturing, and have been used to assist human designers by providing tool-kits to calculate stress loads, strain loads, electrical, magnetic or optical characteristics/performance, weight and balance, and similar background operations, in order to streamline the designer's task, which could include, for example, creating a shaped object for a purpose (such as a sculpturally elegant swing-arm for a motorcycle's suspension system, which would require aesthetic qualities but also would be required to meet design constraints for fittings or mounting surfaces for assembly to the vehicle, as well as load-bearing, torque-bearing, torsional loading, weight-balance and other characteristics). Similar systems are in operation for designing and instructing componentry manufacture and assembly for large structures such as buildings with unconventional shapes and skins (such as relatively recent Frank Gehry designs). Computer-assisted design systems are not mature and operational in providing design tools to deal with three-dimensional composite components which can be manufactured using non-obvious accretive manufacturing techniques with variable or composite materials, in particular such as are described below.